1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of ectoparasite detection. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for the detection of arthropod ectoparasites and their eggs which have infested live hosts such as humans or other animals. Accordingly, the general objects of the present invention are to provide novel and improved methods and apparatus of such character.
2. Description of the Related Art
Arthropod ectoparasite infestation is an enormously persistent and troubling condition today even in industrialized nations. For example, pediculosis capitis or head lice infestation presently afflicts an estimated 12 million patients or hosts in the United States alone. Most of these hosts are school children. These arthropod ectoparasites are easily spread from child to child and are hard to eliminate once the host child has been infested. The lice themselves, which generally remain at or near scalp level, are small and difficult to find. Naturally, once infestation has begun in a host, the condition persists and is exacerbated by the reproductive cycle of the lice. Thus, the lice produce eggs, or nits, which are tenaciously affixed near the bottom of the hair shafts by a cement produced by female lice. Given this, it has long been recognized that the key to pediculosis diagnosis and treatment lies in the detection and removal of nits.
In early days, control of this parasite was accomplished by a variety of wholly manual treatments. For example, lice detection and removal has long been effected by laboriously searching the scalp of an infested host and hand-removing individual louse eggs, or nits, attached to the hairs of the host. Painful and slow combing with a fine-tooth comb has also been commonly used to remove nits. This method is generally considered to be a slightly faster and more effective variant of the hand-removal method. Other methods of nit and/or louse removal include shaving the scalp or soaking the hair and scalp with dangerous materials such as kerosene. More recently, efforts have concentrated on developing chemical pediculicides to treat lice infestation. One significant drawback of such pediculicides is that evolutionary selective pressures inevitably give rise to strains of head lice which are resistant to the pediculicides. Thus, newly developed pediculicides rapidly lose effectiveness. Accordingly, removal of nits by hand or with a fine-tooth comb remains the most effective method of removing head lice. Since nits are generally less than a millimeter in diameter, they are quite hard to detect, especially in children with thick, fine hair. Thus, it is still common for a thorough delousing of the scalp using a fine-tooth comb to require over one and one half hours. Further, this combing process often needs to be repeated daily because it is so easy to overlook nits.
Therefore, there remains a need in the art for an improved method of detecting arthropod ectoparasite infestations which overcomes the aforementioned deficiencies of the related art by providing a rapid, sensitive and accurate diagnostic method that provides initial, early and yet definitive diagnosis of infestation.
Further, there remains a need in the art for an improved method of detecting arthropod ectoparasite infestations which overcomes the aforementioned deficiencies of the related art by providing a method of detecting such infestations which enables advantageous treatment without the need for costly and dangerous chemical insecticide and acaricide treatments.